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Please copy/paste the text below—or use your own words—and send to your local newspaper, radio, or television media. Also send this to anyone you know who is in a position to influence hospital policy.

Dear ____________,

To conserve resources for treating seriously ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Surgeon General has asked hospitals to postpone or cancel elective surgeries.

Newborn circumcision, carried out in American hospitals more than 3000 times each day on healthy baby boys, is an elective surgery that falls into the lowest priority of the Surgeon General’s guidelines. It is a cosmetic procedure, having no therapeutic purpose. It consumes personal protective equipment (PPE)—especially masks, gloves, sterile drapes and bandages—as well as doctors’ and nurses’ time. It creates an open wound and extends the length of hospital stay for babies and their mothers, increasing the likelihood of exposure to COVID-19 and other pathogens.

Nowhere else in the developed world is newborn circumcision considered a routine, legitimate medical procedure. American parents and their sons will benefit from American hospitals’ refusal to perpetuate this needless intervention – during this pandemic, and beyond.

Sincerely,